George Stinney Exoneration Highlights Jim Crow-Era Wrongful Executions

On December 17, 2014, a South Carolina judge exonerated George Stinney Jr., a 14-year-old Black boy executed in 1944 for the murders of two white girls, the youngest person executed in the U.S. in the 20th century. The judge found Stinney had not received a fair trial: he had no meaningful legal representation, his 'confession' was coerced without parents present, and the all-white jury deliberated for 10 minutes. The case, revisited in the modern era, became a touchstone for discussions of wrongful convictions, juvenile justice, and racial terror masquerading as law.